Invisible Air War: Lancet says 13% of Iraq's war dead killed in air raids

[BurtWorm]

That figure is analyzed by Australian blogger John Quiggin:

http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2006/10/14/air-war-in-iraq/


One number that is striking, but hasn’t attracted a lot of attention is the estimated death rate from air strikes, 13 per cent of the total or between 50 000 and 80 000 people. Around half the estimated deaths in the last year of the survey, from June 2005 to June 2006. That’s at least 25 000 deaths, or more than 70 per day.

Yet reports of such deaths are very rare. If you relied on media reports you could easily conclude that total deaths from air strikes would only be a few thousand for the entire war. The difference between the numbers of deaths implied by the Lancet study and the reports that shape the “gut perceptions” that the Lancet must have got it wrong are nowhere greater than here. So are the numbers plausible?

I recall seeing only a handful of mentions of air strikes in the mainstream press. In checking my perceptions on this, I found this piece by Norman Solomon (linked by by Dahr Jamil) who notes that a search for “air war” produces zero results for the NYT, Washington Post and Times. Solomon refers to the earlier New Yorker article by Seymour Hersh who makes the same point.

The best source turns out to be the US Air Force Command itself. For October and November 2005, the US Air Force recorded 120 or more air strikes, and this number was on an increasing trend. Most of the strikes appear to be in or near urban areas, and the recorded examples include Hellfire missiles fired by Predators, an F-16 firing a thousand 20mm cannon rounds and an F-15 reported to have fired three GBU-38s, the new satellite-guided 500-pound bomb designed for support of ground troops in close combat. Typical reports of air strikes involve the destruction of buildings in which suspected insurgents are seen taking shelter, or from which fire has been reported. Obviously there is no opportunity to check whether such buildings are occupied by civilians.

An average of 10 fatalities for each air strike seems plausible. If we assume the average number of US plane and missile strikes for the year as a whole was 150 per month, that’s 18000 fatalities per year. Taking into account strikes by British and other allied forces and by attack helicopters (which seem to be used a lot, but are also rarely reported) it seems likely that Coalition air strikes killed more than 20 000 people in 2005-06.


<I found this post through majikthise.com.>

[BurtWorm]

1. kick

[BurtWorm]

2. Hm. If you're reading this, please blink twice.

:crazy:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

3. There was a study a year or two ago...

saying that most of the deaths were attributed to US forces directly, not the Insurgency. It was quieted up pretty quickly.

Anybody remember what that was?